SERMON 131 - SUNDAY 10 MARCH 2019

Sermon delivered at All Saints’ Church, Farley  – Sunday 10 March 2019 – Morning Worship in Lent

Genesis 2 & 3; Luke 1:46-55

May I speak in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen

“In the Beginning”

Today we begin our sermon series on the subject of prayer which will continue through the Sunday’s of Lent until we reach Palm Sunday on 14^th April and appropriately enough the title of the first sermons today is “In the Beginning” recognising that right back to Genesis, God was anxious to communicate with Humans and for us to hear and feel His presence with us here on Earth. Likewise, Jesus’s life on Earth was announced at the very beginning in the form of Mary’s Prayer of Thanksgiving at the Annunciation – the Magnificat which was read out this morning as our Gospel Reading.

So what is prayer? Is there any particular formula we should use or should not use in praying to God – and as God is “Three Persons in One”, to whom should we address our prayers?  These are some of the questions we shall be considering over the next five weeks which the Staff Team hopes will encourage you to go deeper with your faith and, if it is not already so, encouraging  you to make prayer a daily activity.  Our readings this morning have been specially chosen to illustrate the natural and fundamental nature of prayer – conversations and/or connection with God.

Surveys actually show that we pray more than we are likely to admit.  It seems that we may very well be more aware of our spiritual nature today than ever – looking for something above and beyond our daily grind – a realisation that there is indeed something much more to the busy earthly life we lead.  Recently, some evangelical Christians set themselves up in a vacant shop in a Canadian city and advertised that they were there to give “Spiritual Readings”.  In no time at all a massive queue had formed outside – in fact their spiritual readings were a short discussion followed by some prayer ministry.  The word “spiritual” had caught the public’s interest whereas the word “prayer” would not have.

G.K. Chesterton, the creator of that detective sleuthing priest Father Brown once wrote “At the back of our brains there is a forgotten blaze or burst of astonishment at our own existence. The object of our artistic or spiritual life is to dig for this sunrise of wonder”.  In other words deep down in our subconscious is an overwhelming desire to connect with our creator whether we attend church or other religious institution or not.

For example we often hear people, non-Christians especially, using such phrases as “I pray that our team wins tonight”, or “I pray that Tommy passes his Eleven Plus” or “I pray Janey arrives safely back from her long trip” and I doubt there is one serviceman or woman who, on active service under fire, has not muttered a prayer under their breath.  Indeed, I can recall vividly, before I was what one would call a practising Christian, a time when I took a small dingy out on the sea close to the two piers at Brighton.  I was an inexperienced sailor and, to tell the truth, I was rather foolhardy to go out alone.  The dingy capsized tossing me into the water and I started to get carried out to sea on the current.  I have never prayed so hard in my life and with the help of prayer and sheer physical determination I was eventually able to right the boat, after several attempts, pull myself on board and sail back to the beach. It is such a natural and instinctive thing to do – pray.

As we will discover, as we go through our sermon series there are many varied ways of praying.  Many have the classic view of praying on bended knee with hands together offering up prays of supplication.  That is one way and perhaps the way we were taught as children – bedtime prayers after brushing our teeth at night. However, we can also pray silently (as in saying our words or prayer aloud in our head);  silently as in a form of meditative or contemplative prayer (in this we seek to connect with God in our innermost soul by being still and quiet); we can pray aloud with others in forms of open (or extemporary prayer) but the essence of each form of prayer is to connect with and communicate with God – by not only talking to God but also listening for his response.

Prayer can also take the form of worship – singing praises or reciting or writing poetry.  This is what Mary is doing in the words of the Magnificat – she is reflecting on all that has recently happened to her – a young girl visited by an Angel to be told she is going to bear a child out of wedlock, told the name she is to give to the child - that he will be “the Son of God”.  How awesome that must have been – the moment captured so well in the painting by Fra Angelico which is to be found in St. Marco’s in Florence.

Mary’s instinct after this visit is to sing a song of praise – to praise God for these wonderful things which are to come to pass and her especial place in it all – remembering God’s past mercies. To see things in the light of what has gone on before in the history of her nation – The Fall, Exodus, United Nation, Exile and Rebuilding. So she recites:

“My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour ” – an instinctive feeling within her that compels her to acknowledge the importance of God with much inner rejoicing

“He has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servants. Surely from now on all generations shall be blessed” – God has blessed a simple humble girl like Mary with such an importance that will be recognised for all time

“For the Mighty One has done great things for me and holy is his name” – Mary has been asked to do something amazing by Yahweh, the God who has chosen people in the past to do his ministry and now chooses her for this great task

“His mercy is on them that fear him from generation to generation” – those that believe in Him now and in the future and honour him will receive his mercy, his forgiveness

“He has shown strength with his arm and has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts” – by this act God has demonstrated the need for Humankind to need and understand and acknowledge his power and not think they can rely on their own their own thoughts and desires

“He has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich empty away” – a prophesy for Jesus’s ministry.  God has placed his reliance on a simple lowly girl as an example of how he uses and will use ordinary people.  The people of Israel were expecting a Messiah who would be a great kingly leader on a horse but in fact Jesus came as a humble carpenter’s son who was to enter Jerusalem in triumph on a young colt.  Likewise Jesus told the Pharisees that he had come to help the poor and needy - the rich would receive their rewards on Earth but the poor believers would receive theirs in Heaven.

“He has helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy according to the promises he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever” - this is a reference back to Old Testament prophesy, especially Isaiah, that God would not, in the long run, forsake his chosen people of Israel and is remembering the covenant made that the descendants of Abraham would be as numerous as the stars in the sky and grains of sand on the beach.  He will not abandon them and by sending his only Son through Mary he is fulfilling those prophesies.

Mary’s song brings together an acknowledgement of everything prophesised and promised in the books of the Old Testament – that is why it remains important to have an understanding of the stories and history contained in the 37 books of the Old Testament if we are to make complete sense of the Gospels and other 25 books of the New.

Like the conversation which Adam and Eve had with God at the first Creation in the Garden of Eden so Mary’s conversation, her prayer of thanksgiving and praise, heralds in the New Creation.

Jesus taught his disciples the importance of prayer and even gave them and us a template based on the mnemonic “ACTS” – Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving and Supplication”. These are the four elements of prayer – glorifying God, confessing our sins, giving praise and thanksgiving for the good things he gives us and finally our requests.  He taught us to pray with sincerity.

In my short piece in this month’s parish magazines I talk about the importance of prayer at this time of uncertainty and upheaval in our nation’s history. We are on the brink, possibly, of a new era outside of the Union with our European neighbours.  This time coincides with Lent – a time for fasting, reflection and prayer. I invite you now to join me in a short prayer for our nation remembering that in so doing we are in a two way communication with God.  He does hear us and he always wants to hear from us

Let us pray:

God of hope,

As you led your people through the wilderness,

Guide us through the political confusion of these days,

that together we may live in harmony

and work for the good of all

for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord

Amen                                                                                                    MFB/08032019

SERMON 130 - SUNDAY 10 FEBRUARY 2019

Sermon delivered at All Saints’ Church, Whiteparish  – Sunday 10 February 2019 - Evensong

Hosea 1; Colossians 3:1-22

May I speak in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen

Tonight we have had two rather challenging readings which, on first appearance, seem totally out of touch with modern thinking and experiences yet, when we reflect upon them more fully, and understand them within the context of the cultures of the time in which they were written,  they are perhaps more relevant today than at any other time.  At the end of this short homily this evening, I will invite you to say what you yourself think about these readings and, in particular, how they make you feel.

The Book of Hosea, in particular, makes uncomfortable reading, even frightening; but it is, actually, a story about love – both God’s love and human love. It is also about our human responsibility, about the choices for or against God that Israel had to make and that we too have to make in our world today.

Hosea is known in biblical study as one of the “Minor Prophets” – the first of twelve short books which come at the very end of the Old Testament and immediately before the Gospel of Matthew – leaving aside the books of the Apocrypha.  They follow on from the “Major Prophets” of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel and like them their writings are attributed to the time of the Exile following the occupation of either or both of the split kingdoms of Israel in the north and Judah in the south.  Hosea was a northerner and therefore his message was for Israel which was conquered by the Assyrians before the southern kingdom of Judah was overrun by the Babylonians.

It is a book about unfaithfulness; how Israel had become unfaithful by hedging its bets and worshipping other gods – especially the Canaan pagan god of fertility – Baal.  In this book God is asking Hosea to experience the hurt and anguish that God is himself feeling about the unfaithfulness of the people he loves. Hosea is asked to take, as his wife, a woman who will be become immoral – a surprising start for a prophet. Hosea was not only to preach about God’s persistent love for his people in the face of terrible rejection but was to actually live and feel that rejection in his own life – a costly ministry. He was to understand God’s anguish yet unconditional love by experiencing the rejection he was to suffer at the hands of an unfaithful wife. His wife, Gomer, was to become a picture of Israel’s unfaithfulness to God.

As you read the Book of Hosea you will find that nowhere are we given any idea of Hosea’s emotions or the depth of the hurt he felt as Gomer left him or the courage he needed to forgive and renew the relationship.  Those of us who have experienced something similar, as I have, can only have a really good guess. We do not know whether the marriage eventually had a happy ending because it is actually God’s love story and not simply past history  - it is God’s word for us today.  The message, as I see it is that however much we might hurt God by our actions and unfaithfulness, his love for us continues to be unconditional. 

I wonder how easy it would be for most to forgive an unfaithful wife and seek to mend the relationship. In his Book of Forgiveness, Archbishop Desmond Tutu gives us some ideas from the context of reconciliation in South Africa after the removal of white minority rule.  He says we can either chose to enter into a cycle of reconciliation or a cycle of revenge – the former often being much easier but leading to further destruction. Unconditional love and forgiveness are therefore often very difficult commodities, very difficult to provide but such is the love of God that we can feel secure in the knowledge that we are never beyond redemption in His eyes.  We must understand, though, that the story of Gomer’s unfaithfulness is also a metaphor for our own weaknesses, both men and women and we should not necessarily assume all the “badness” was on Gomer’s part either. The culture of the time of writing this piece of scripture was a time of patriarchal supremacy. Unfaithfulness by men was equally, if not more prevalent.  Today we also live in a society where sex is a commodity and exploitation widespread.

Likewise in our second lesson this evening – from the writings of Paul to the church at Colossae – we must be careful not to construe his message as being particularly sexist either.

Paul was concerned that the early Christians in their community in Colossae were in danger of being led astray by false teachings based on Jewish mysticism – in particular these false teachers were encouraging the Colossian Christians to return to specific Jewish customs – the practice of circumcision, the observance of certain food and drink regulations and keeping the laws about regular worship and activities on the Sabbath – in other words that salvation was to be achieved by deeds and not by faith.

In his letter, as a whole, Paul is trying to show that the proper worship of Jesus Christ affects every aspect of their lives and thus rules out the need for such mystical practices. In its place Paul, in Chapter 3 which we read this evening, talks about the new life in Christ following the two great commandments which Jesus left his followers – loving God and loving one another – from which all goodness will flow.

In other words, Paul is setting out a code of Christian conduct which is based once more on unconditional love; he asks husbands to love their wives and not treat them as a commodity – something which it was probably often difficult for the men of the time to do – something probably as equally hard as for women to “be subject to their husbands” but note that in this passage/translation Paul says “as is fitting in the Lord” – that is, as Jesus would find fitting or wish.

In both of our lessons this evening the theme is this – God’s unconditional love is so great that it stands head and shoulders above anything which we humans can comprehend.  God wants us to genuinely repent from our sinful ways – however much sinful they may be – and live a life which shows that same unconditional love for others, forgiving where necessary.  Not easy to achieve and requiring us probably repenting many times and asking forgiveness again and again – but doing so with a genuine and generous heart however much it might hurt to do so and despite the great hurt which might have been done to us.  Hosea and also Job experienced that hurt.  Many more of us have or will – but the prize at the end of such experiences is a prize well worth having – salvation; eternal life.

Amen                                                                                                    MFB/07022019

SERMON 129 - SUNDAY 3 FEBRUARY 2019

Sermon delivered at All Saints’ Church, Whiteparish  – Sunday 3 February 2019 – Candlemas

Luke 2:22-40

“Master, you are now dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples;

A light for revelation to the Gentiles and for the glory of your people Israel”

I think everyone here is very familiar with this passage – it has been sung over the centuries in its King James Version under its Latin heading “Nunc Dimittis” meaning “now you dismiss”.

For some strange inexplicable reason our Church’s liturgical year goes backwards chronologically at this time.  Last week we had the twelve year old boy Jesus left behind in the Temple explaining prophesy to the scribes and elders and here we go back twelve years to his presentation in the Temple as a tiny baby following his naming and circumcism. 

We call this Sunday “Candlemas” and earlier this week I was asked to explain why the presentation of Jesus in the Temple had been given this name.  Only a couple of hours earlier I had, thankfully, heard an explanation from Alec Knight so was able to give an answer quickly and impressively!  The early church leaders recognised and spoke of Jesus’s presentation as being the presentation of the light of the world – as we have just read “a light for revelation to the Gentiles and the glory of the people Israel” and services, especially in the Orthodox Church, use a great many candles in their services at this time – hence Candlemas.  

This morning, though, I want to concentrate a little more on those two elderly dwellers in the Temple – Simeon and Anna and their importance in this story.

 I think I have been fighting off old age for some time now. Indeed, I had my children late in life such that when many of my contemporaries from school and university have been sending me Christmas newsletters about how well their grandchildren are doing, I had felt much younger for the lack of anyone to call me grandad, or grandpa or whatever and I was still writing our own newsletter primarily about our children. Old age though seems to have crept up – first there was retirement, which was put off in my mind by retraining for church ministry – a gruelling four year academic course with essays and assignments – being back as a university student, then the bus pass arrived – now that was a great asset of growing older and made me even more restless; and then last September the state pension.  The one thing, though, which I did find weird was after twelve years of taking my son to watch Southampton FC at St. Mary’s with him getting a concession for his youth and me having to pay full whack as an adult, when we attended a match there a few weeks’ ago he had to pay the full adult price and I was the concession for age!  I suddenly realised that old age had finally arrived and it has led me to much reflection about my ministry and what God is wanting me to do as I enter what I believe we now call the third age.

Last Saturday lunchtime something massively significant occurred – our daughter-in-law gave birth to two beautiful twins – a girl and a boy – Fiona and William. Suddenly I was catapulted into the new status of a grandparent and far from feeling old I suddenly felt such a wonderful amazing love for these two little bundles of joy.  It brought to mind Simeon’s words, not the bit about “departing” but the bit that says “my eyes have seen your salvation” – new life, such beauty, such innocence and a deep feeling of our own responsibility towards our future generations.

An elderly lady in a care home once said– “I used to be a good Christian but I can’t get to church now and help out as I used to do; neither can I get down on my knees and pray anymore for fear of not being able to get up again and my sight is so poor I can no longer read my bible.  I feel so helpless, so Godless – what use is my life any more – I am just a burden to everyone.” 

I say to that lady, not so. Maybe you cannot drive people to church or to the shops as you used to, maybe you cannot be on the flower rota, maybe you cannot be in church serving coffee or any of the many other things you used to, perhaps you cannot read your daily devotionals but you can still pray from your armchair or get somebody else to read to you.  You can still smile at the carers and make them feel the warmth of your appreciation for all they do; you can still listen to the stories of others with a sympathetic ear, there are so many things which we can do even as our faculties leave us.

Many stories in the bible, especially in the Old Testament, do describe old age as a feeble and helpless state.  In 2 Samuel 19:31-35 we read of an eighty-year old man, Barzillai, who talks very much like my lady in the care home. He talks of being a burden to King David and of the loss of pleasure of food and drink and hearing music but the King is kind to him and treats him with utter respect.  In the New Testament Peter is told then when he grows old a stranger will carry him to where he no longer wishes to go. My lady in the care home equally does not like the fact that she has to rely upon somebody to push her in a wheelchair for any long distances.

But, here in the story of Simeon and Anna we read of very old people receiving good news from God – looking hopefully to the future, praising and thanking God and sharing the good news.

They are examples to us all – whatever age we might be – praying and praising even when sometimes there is nothing else we can do.  To continue to watch and listen for good news from God and sharing that good news with everyone we meet or encounter in our daily life.

For me the story of Jesus being presented in the Temple is poignant and very real coming at the same time as when Liz and I were first presented to our new born grandchildren – 3 hours old!  They are part of God’s future.  They have also brought a great light into our lives and we trust the world too.  They are examples of God’s wonderful creation and love and certainly make me appreciate the preciousness of life. 

Simeon and Anna, these old people greeted the baby Jesus. Now you may think that Mary and Joseph would find themselves hearing old Simeon and Anna moaning about how bad everything was with the occupation of the Romans, Herod’s government and everything. They could have harked back to the good old days. But they didn't.

They were both old but they didn't live in the past. They both had lots to complain about but they were positive about the future. Neither of them were moaners.

We are told that the Holy Spirit rested on Simeon. The Holy Spirit leads us today, as then, into the future with hope, because the future is God's and God will always give us hope. The challenge for each of us is to put our trust in God in the same complete way that Simeon and Anna did when they glimpsed the divine face of that small baby in the Temple.

So many Christian mystics have talked about seeing the divine face or falling in love with the face of Jesus. Clare of Assisi (1194-1253) often used the image of “mirroring” in her writings. We are mirrored not by concepts, but by faces delighting in us, giving us the face we can’t give to ourselves. And, of course, the ultimate and perfect mirror is the face of God.

The early mirroring we receive from our parents is particularly important. Neuroscience now shows that the gaze between a newborn and his or her loving caretaker creates “mirror neurons” that help a person become compassionate and have empathy for others. Moreover, although none of us can demand or expect absolutely unconditional divine love from another human being, we can experience very real aspects of it. This helps us be able to imagine what God’s love is like and keeps us open to God’s love.

James Finley offers a fitting poetic image for this idea:

“When God eases us out of God’s heart into the earthly plane, God searches for the place that is most like paradise, and it’s the mother’s gaze. In the mother’s gaze, she transparently sacramentalises God’s infinite gaze of love, looking into the eyes of the infant. And when the infant looks into her eyes it is looking into God’s eyes, incarnate as her loving eyes.”

When caregivers and infants gaze at each other, their brain activity increases; parts of their brains literally light up. Similarly, Finley says:

“When God gazes at us and we gaze at God, both of us light up. God lights up in the sense of the joy of being recognized by the one that God created in his own image and likeness for the very sake of this recognition. For us it’s a moment of visceral, intimate communion or oneness that feels like homecoming.”

We must like Simeon have the faith to recognise God at work in this world; God in this world and have the faith to trust that God has a plan for his world; we must, like Anna, be able to look to the dawning of a new age; just as we welcomed those twins last Saturday and prayed for their future health and happiness.  Look now into the face of the person or persons sitting next to – you are looking into the face of God’s created image – a glimpse of God himself who loves you.

Let us pray :

O Lord Jesus Christ, as a child you were presented in the Temple and received with joy by Simeon and Anna as Redeemer of Israel and a Light to all Nations: we ask that we, like them, may be guided by the Holy Spirit to acknowledge and love you until the end of our lives.

Amen                                                                                                    MFB/30012019

SERMON 128 - SUNDAY 13 JANUARY 2019

Sermon delivered at All Saints’ Church, Winterslow  – Sunday 13 January 2019 – Baptism of Christ

Isaiah 43:1-7; Acts 8:14-17; Luke 3:15-17; 21-22

May I speak in the name of the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit and may my words be a blessing to all who hear them. Amen

“When Jesus had been baptized and was praying the heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in the bodily form like a dove; and a voice came from Heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased”.

I think everyone here is very familiar with this passage and artists throughout the centuries have depicted the scene in wonderful icons, frescos and paintings showing Jesus arising out of the River Jordan with a dove descending upon him. Perhaps the most famous is that by Leonardo de Vinci which is currently on display in the Uffizi in Florence.  The scene is magical but it has always left me with a major theological conundrum – if Jesus was the Son of God, if Jesus is part of the Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, why did the Holy Spirit have to descend upon him when he was some thirty years of age? Wasn’t he born with the Spirit already?

The topic has been questioned and debated by theologians and indeed to say that Jesus was not divine at birth would have sent people to a fiery death at the stake in medieval times; but many like me have sought an answer to this question and it is a mark of a mature faith that we are prepared to sit down and ponder on things such as this.  I do not profess to know the answer but I am prepared to share with you my own thoughts on this.

At this time the Jewish people where hopeful that a Messiah would come and end their sufferings under Roman occupation.  Isaiah had prophesied his coming and many false messiah’s had appeared – Judas Maccabeus for one.  The people were desperate for a leader to appear and rise up against the occupiers and sweep away the puppet government of Herod Antipas. It is therefore not surprising that they should seek to enquire whether John the Baptist, this strange but charismatic individual should not be the promised Anointed One. John is emphatic that he is not the One but has been sent ahead of Him; that he baptizes with water but the Messiah will baptize with the Holy Spirit.

We read in Luke 1:39 that John’s mother was Elizabeth, the cousin of Mary, the mother of Jesus. We read there that Mary went to see Elizabeth who had been filled with the Holy Spirit and that Elizabeth’s unborn child “leapt in her womb” at the news that Mary was expecting the child Jesus.  Earlier in Luke 1:15 Elizabeth’s husband, the priest Zachariah is told that “even before his birth he will be filled with the Holy Spirit”.  It seems improbable, then, that John, who describes himself as “lesser than the one who is to come” should be Spirit-filled at birth yet “The One”, Jesus, is not.

An explanation which I like to think is very plausible is that whilst Jesus was divine from birth it was necessary for there to be a public declaration at the beginning of his ministry of the presence of the Holy Spirit within him.  In Old Testament times the Holy Spirit was certainly present and we read how the Spirit came upon Moses, Elijah, Saul and David at specific times for specific purposes connected with God’s will.  We also read how the Spirit could also be taken away – as with King Saul. It was not until Pentecost, and the departure of Jesus from his earthly life that the Holy Spirit became available permanently to all who sought.  During Jesus’s time on Earth the Holy Spirit was with him – we read time and time again of the power of the Holy Spirit being used for miracles and healing.  When Jesus left us, he left the Holy Spirit available to all who believed that he Jesus was indeed the Christ, the Messiah, the Saviour.  In his great commission at the end of Matthew he asks the disciples to go out in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit to baptize and teach.  When the Holy Spirit came upon Jesus at his baptism it came to stay and to be passed on to all who believed in Christ as the Saviour. 

This is fundamental to our belief as Christians. From time to time I hear people say to me “Yes I believe in Christ, that he existed that he was a prophet and a good man who taught great lessons on being good – but as for being the son of God and rising from the dead, that’s pushing it a bit too far”.  For me, such sentiments do not accord with the true meaning of being a Christian.

But have I answered the question – why did the Holy Spirit publicly descend upon Christ only in his thirtieth year? My view is that Jesus was born a human being. It was necessary for him to act wholly humanly and in that he needed to ask to be baptized.  You will recall that John at first refused to do so saying that surely Christ should be doing the baptizing; but by asking John to do it he was setting an example for everybody in the future – the wonderful gift of the Holy Spirit was freely available to all members of the human race who asked for it – just as Jesus did. As Paul says in Philippians 2:6-8:

“[Jesus] who though he was in the form of God did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited but emptied himself taking the form of a slave being born in human likeness and being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death …”

Jesus’s divinity, in my view, is beyond question and this passage with its declaration of the God’s words makes it clear to me that Jesus, though humble, was indeed the son of God.

A few years ago, on the Alpha Course Holy Spirit Weekend, I considered whether it was actually necessary to ask the Holy Spirit to come into my life when I had been told, many years earlier that once I had been confirmed in the Church of England and the bishop had laid his hands upon me then the Holy Spirit had arrived.  I don’t disagree with that because the method in which the Spirit arrives can take many guises so long as it has been genuinely sought. The more charismatic churches look at certain manifestations such as being “slain by the spirit” – falling down in other words, or suddenly speaking in tongues. Those manifestations may arise but not necessarily in everybody.  We are told that there are numerous gifts and fruits of the Spirit.  Indeed I am currently part of a Men’s Group in Salisbury which is studying this with a view to discerning what our gifts are. Some say mine is preaching – you might have a totally different view!  For others it might simply be encouraging others or prayer ministry or pastoral ministry. However, what I have discerned from study and more commonly experientially is that having been blessed with the Holy Spirit within us we need to keep it topped up.

Last week the warning light came on my car to inform me that the tyre pressure was low. I checked the tyres on my car to find that two of the tyres were about 3 psi lower than the manufacturer’s recommendation.  They needed topping up to work efficiently.  Nicky Gumbel, the founder of the Alpha Course described the Holy Spirit as being like a gas pilot light inside you.  A lot of the time it sits there quietly burning away without any noticeable heat but once in a while the main gas will whoosh up and fire up the boiler. So with us – we need topping up and from time to time having the main gas value turned on.  Of course, there are many in the world today, and many in our western world in particular where there is not pilot light. The Holy Spirit is yet to descend upon them. That is where we as Christians need to be missional but to do so we need to have that boiler working well.

As you came in this morning you were given a small drawing of a dove. It won’t surprise you to learn that your dove represents to the Holy Spirit today.  At our time of intercessionary prayer I invite you to come up with your dove and place it on the table here at the front. That dove can represent your own request for more of the Holy Spirit to come into your life now, to whoosh up your boiler, it can represent a prayer for the Holy Spirit to come upon somebody else, family and friends or even unborn children – like John. If you feel that the Holy Spirit is missing in your life – you have a flat tyre so to speak – you can ask it to fill you now. If you wish you can write a name or a prayer on the back or even just colour it in. At the back of the church there will be more paper doves for you take away if you wish and keep in your purse, wallet, bible or whatever to remind you either of the prayer you have made today or as a reminder for the future.

Please don’t feel you need to come up and do any of these things if you don’t want to but this is an opportunity for you to declare today that you accept the living Jesus as Saviour and the baptizer of the Holy Spirit.

Amen                                                                                                    MFB/10012019

SERMON 127 - SUNDAY 6 JANUARY 2019

Sermon delivered at St John’s Church, West Grimstead – Sunday 6 January 2019 – Epiphany Sunday

Matthew 1: 18-23; Matthew 2:1-12; John 1:1-18

May I speak in the name of the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen

May I start this morning’s sermon by wishing you all a Very Happy New Year and I look forward to continuing to minister to you in this lovely church and parish.  We have gone a little “off piste” this morning with what we could describe as three lessons and carols using two readings which are not prescribed from the Lectionary for today – rebel that I am!.

Well, have you been following the star?  The journey through the 12 days of Christmas in the little booklet produced by the Church of England, with its welcome from the two Archbishops.  At home, Liz and I have been reading it every day and finding it very inspirational and helpful for our daily prayer and meditation with some excellent examples of how the Christmas story is so relevant to us today.

As well as following the booklet I have also been attempting during this same period to follow a real “Star” in the heavens – an elusive comet with the forgettable name of Comet Wirtanen. I have managed to glimpse it just once with the aid of low power binoculars and a star chart. Supposedly of a magnitude visible to the naked eye I have found it extremely difficult to observe without optical aids as it appears just as a fuzzy cottony puff. Unlike the Star of Bethlehem its course has been predicted by mathematicians and astronomers for some time and unlike the Star of Bethlehem it is surprisingly dim and hard to follow. What the two do share as a similarity is they were both originally quite unexpected and, in the case of the Star of Bethlehem, also act as a wonderful metaphor for brightness in a time of darkness.

In our Gospel Reading from John’s Gospel, a familiar passage which is always read out at the end of the Nine Lessons and Carols, we are told of how Jesus, referred to as “The Word”, came to bring light into the world for all people.

Day 4 of this little booklet is entitled the Unexpected God and we are reminded that “villains” in books, plays, movies and TV series always seem to be dark – whether Darth Vader in Star Wars – who wears a black mask and dark cloak or Voldermort in Harry Potter and this leads us to tend to think of darkness as threatening.

We are reminded though that darkness in itself is not evil; it is merely frightening because we cannot find our bearings within it so we run away from it and we certainly do not go out of our way to find God in places of darkness; yet John tells us that is precisely where God came to dwell – “the light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it” (John1:5). God, we are again reminded came to a place which was frightening - to a place of rejection, of poverty and insecurity. How many places in the world today can be described as just that? Often in our western world we cannot contemplate such places but if you look around you hard enough, indeed in the centre of cities like Salisbury you will find all of these – rejection, poverty and insecurity. Never, since the Second World War has our country felt so insecure as we wait to find out what the outcome of leaving the European Union will have on our economy and security going forward.  Never since the Civil War has our nation been so divided.

God came in the darkness – and brought a great light.  As the writer of our booklet says it might sometimes feel like a very small and flickering light but it is light all the same.

It is easier to find God in beautiful places and at beautiful times – in our grand cathedrals and places of worship, in the beauty of a sunrise or sunset, when life is going well for us, when our finances seem in order and the sun is shining down warmly on us as we sit sipping our tea, coffee or prosecco with our family and friends in the peaceful garden of our lovely country cottage. Idyllic yes, but God is also to be found on the streets, under Sainsbury’s car park, in the hostels, in the political detention camps of North Korea, amongst the poor and destitute of Africa and indeed most of us have had, or will at some time have an experience in our lives of some pain and darkness.  At such times, that light of God may be as dim as Comet Wirtanen and may require us to use whatever optical aids we have to search diligently for it. 

Jesus left us with two great and wonderful “telescopes” of Faith for us to use to find the light and connect with God – he taught us how to pray – to chat directly with the Father through him - and he left us the Holy Spirit, that great and wonderful part of the Trinity which is there for us all now and for ever more.  It costs us nothing, it’s a free gift – all we need do is ask for the Spirit to come into our lives and remain with us – then with such a powerful aid we shall track down and see the light more clearly.

The wise men followed a brilliant object – a wandering star which led them to where Jesus was. They were probably astrologers rather than astronomers and were clearly wealthy – bringing with them three of the most expensive commodities of their time – gold for kingship, frankincense for divinity and myrrh, the bitter perfume used in time of burial to represent sorrow and suffering.  The wise men, expecting the star to announce the birth of an earthly king, assumed that Jesus would be born in a palace – hence their trip first to Jerusalem – to the palace of King Herod to be told that this wasn’t the place they were seeking. In our nativity scenes we place the Magi with the shepherds in the stable whereas in Matthew we are not told exactly where they end up except that it seems to have been in a house rather than the stable of Luke’s gospel – and possibly sometime after his birth.  We have given them names too – Balthasar from Arabia, Melchior from Persia and Gasper from India yet nowhere in the bible are they identified as such, nor are we told their number. 

So they remain a mystery.  What is significant, however, is that they are identified as gentiles coming from the east and together with the shepherds they represent the outcasts of the Jewish faith – shepherds being poor and lowly – the butt of many Jewish jokes of the time - and the wise men being foreigners, gentiles. Yet, here we have these two groups being especially chosen – one set with a heavenly Angelic host and the other with an unusual astronomical phenomena - to be the first to hear the good news of Christ’s coming.

It always gives me such comfort that the light – Jesus – came for the poor and outcast of the world.

The word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us.  The light shines in the darkness.

So, in conclusion, is there an area of pain and darkness in your life or the life of your family and friends or community?  How can you ask God to bring his light within it to shine away the fear which that darkness brings?  How will you seek out that light – be it bright or dim in your life just now?

Let us pause for a moment and reflect upon this – PAUSE –

Let us pray

God of light, we thank you that you are present everywhere, even when we cannot see you.  Please shine your light into the difficult places of our lives.

Amen                                                                                                    MFB/04012019

SERMON 126 - WEDNESDAY 5 DECEMBER 2018

Address delivered at St John’s Church, Winterslow -  Mothers’ Union Service during Advent  – Wednesday 5th December  2018

Isaiah 11:1-5, 10; Luke 1:26-28; Matthew 1:18-24

May I speak in the name of the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen

What joyous words we read in these pieces of scripture which we have heard today. First of all, Isaiah’s prophecy in our Old Testament reading heralding the coming of a saviour to the Jewish people – words of comfort to those Jews in Babylonian captivity. Those first Jews who heard this prophecy must have been delighted for they had had a fairly rough time of it – God’s chosen people exiled from the Promised Land who felt that God’s wrath had placed them where they were with a bleak future ahead of them. Then Isaiah proclaims the coming of a descendant of King David (the shoot that shall come from the stock of Jesse).  This Messiah will put all things right because he shall have the spirit of the living God, Yahweh, upon him.

We have to fast forward another five hundred years to a different scenario for our two New Testament readings – yet the message is the same.  A young girl, Mary, in a small insignificant village on the shores of Lake Galilee A vision – the angel Gabriel sent to the young girl as a messenger from the same Yahweh.  What an incredible experience. Gabriel greets her with the enigmatic words “Greeting favoured one!” What on earth can it mean? The message he brings is that she is pregnant and the father is the Holy Spirit.

No wonder her fiancée, as we read in Matthew, is well upset and confused. Yeah right, pregnant by whom, did you say?, God in the form of the Holy Spirit! Pull the other one. Do you take me for a fool?  It almost seems like a scene from modern day Coronation Street!  Even if Joseph could believe what he was being told  it certainly wouldn’t do his own reputation amongst his peers any good; a cuckold, a patsy, a weak man.  As we read, Joseph concluded that the best way to deal with this problem was to quietly dismiss Mary; break off the engagement, let her deal with her own shame and humiliation away from prying neighbours.

But we read that this wasn’t the way it was to be. Joseph received a message in a dream to stand by Mary, marry her and support her in her amazing role; so all ended happily at that point.

As a man, I still ponder what Joseph must have felt like after that revelation. We know little of Joseph’s life after the fleeing to Egypt although surmise that he continued his carpenter’s career with Jesus as his apprentice. What we do know is that Joseph was descended directly from Boaz and hence through Jesse giving credence to Isaiah’s prophecy that Jesus would come from the shoot of Jesse.

Jesus, born of a woman, becoming God incarnate, who has come to save God’s people.  Today we are celebrating the Annunciation which has been represented in some of the most beautiful art in the world. I can still vividly recall the moment when I arrived at the top of a flight of stairs in the Monastery of San Marco in Florence and saw right in front of me the wonderful fresco of the Annunciation by Fra Angelico.  It was an amazing and unforgettable moment.  Here was one of the most famous paintings here before my own eyes in its original form. 

For those of you who know it I am sure you are also struck by the serenity on the face of the young Mary as she listens intently to what the angel is saying – imparting such life changing news – life changing not just to this young girl but as we know to the whole world. It is a face of engagement and obedience.  I wonder how many of us would have been so composed.

This role of a mother is so important and complex.  Everybody on earth today has or has had a mother.  It is pivotal for the continuance of our human species.  This advent as we wait for the coming of Jesus let us spare a thought for Mary as she went through all those emotions of pregnancy – the highs and lows, the worries and anxieties – no NHS or scans for her.

I can, to some extent reflect on her situation myself. In about six weeks’ time my daughter-in-law is expected to deliver twins – our first grandchildren – and I am getting really excited at this event – although being called a grandparent does shatter my self-delusions of youth!  It will be, for me, one of the most wonderful events since the birth of my own children.  Being a mother means safety, security, comfort, understanding.

 I recall a mother once setting out a job description for herself when a rather unthinking person talked of her putting “unemployed” on a form.  Do you really think I am unemployed? Well let me tell you that I have several jobs – nurse, chef, teacher, counsellor, housekeeper, maid, coach, taxi-driver, story-teller, planner, organiser, best friend, worst friend, photographer, cleaner.  I can’t get sick, don’t take holidays but get paid in hugs and kisses.

We use the word “mother” often to describe a safe place – our mother land, a mother ship and so on. Even on the Cross, Jesus recognised the need for every person to have a mother when he pointed to the young disciple John and then his mother saying “John, here is your mother” .

Think of that young mother’s job description again. Doesn’t it bear many similarities with Jesus’s own job description – “healer of the sick, teacher, counsellor, friend”?

Celebrating the Feast of the Annunciation therefore is to celebrate something incredibly wonderful – a celebration of the importance of motherhood.  I stand here before so many mothers. I salute you all. To be a good mother is to be Christ-like. To give unconditional love, to love, comfort, nurse, heal, teach without counting the cost. To forgive and embrace those who sometimes may hurt you.

May God bless you and keep you forever in his love.

Amen                                                                                                    MFB/03.12.2018